Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – BAM resumes in-person performance with Le Patin Libre’s INFLUENCES, in which modern dance aggressively meets ice skating

• By drediman
• April 8, 2021
• No Comments

Last night, I attended the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s return to live, in-person performance in over a year – Le Patin Libre’s Influences, which is being performed outdoors this week at the skating rink at the LeFrak Center in Prospect Park. Hailing from Montreal and founded by Alexandre Hamel (who continues to perform with the company) in 2005, Le Patin Libre is a contemporary ice skating troupe that strives to combine the artistic possibilities of modern dance with the exhilarating physics of ice skating (figure, as well as speed). The result is an undeniably fascinating hybrid that exudes the fearlessness of circus arts and street performance. The current program has been divided into two relatively short halves. The evening commenced with a couple of short works. Then after a quick costume change, the program continued with Influences, the evening’s main course.

Although it was sometimes difficult to tell when one piece ended and another began (apart from the mid-performance costume change), I actually didn’t mind as I found the freedom and seamlessness of it all to be mesmerizing. Overall, the skating was surprisingly aggressive – which belies the grace and balletic beauty usually associated with figure skating – with the performers regularly abusing the ice by stomping on it or stubbornly resisting the blade’s inclination to glide. Indeed, by the end of the evening, the ice surface was battered and looked to be in definite need of some serious TLC from a Zamboni. This combination of glide and friction brought a captivating variety to the choreography, which was less about purity of line as it was about the attitude of the edges. Although there’s a loose, laid-back, and almost improvisational quality to Le Patin Libre’s aesthetic (as if the performers were making up the movements as they went along), there’s no doubt of the company’s single heartbeat as the skaters weaved in and out of various formations sans collisions.

The company’s five athletic dancer/skaters – who were masked during the performance – provided a thrilling rush as they repeatedly swooshed by the rinkside audience like a flock of birds in flight. In the first few pieces, their tone was playful, although in Influences, hints of violence between the performers began to emerge as the choreography simultaneously pushed their physical limits. Throughout the evening, the quintet created a number of memorable moving tableaus, which were enhanced by a dreamy electronic score and atmospheric lighting (often times the skaters were in striking silhouette). The compact and dynamic Mr. Hamel was a standout and is probably the most formidably trained traditional figure skater of the lot (collectively, I saw him casually lift up into two triple toe loops, a triple salchow, a pair of double axels, and numerous other jumps – all landed successfully). But each of them are distinctive skaters, possessing their individual strengths on the ice, as well as their own idiosyncratic “stage” persona.

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INFLUENCES
Dance
Le Patin Libre / Brooklyn Academy of Music at the LeFrak Center
1 hour, 10 minutes (with a brief pause)
Through April 11